Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday:
81 Lihue, Kauai
85 Honolulu, Oahu
81 Molokai
84 Kahului, Maui
84 Kona, Hawaii
85 Hilo, Hawaii
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops on Maui and the Big Island…as of 830pm Tuesday evening:
Kailua Kona – 77
Port Allen, Kauai – 75
Haleakala Summit – 46 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 37 (13,000+ feet on the Big Island)
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too… depending upon weather conditions. Here’s the Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui – if it’s working.
Aloha Paragraphs
Trade winds, a few windward showers through Wednesday…
followed by a rather dramatic weather change later this week
Small Craft Wind Advisory…windiest coasts and
channels around Maui County and the Big Island
The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions as of Tuesday evening:
21 Port Allen, Kauai – ESE
28 Kuaokala, Oahu – NE
25 Molokai – ENE
28 Lanai – NE
36 Kahoolawe – E
24 Kahului, Maui – NE
31 South Point, Big Island – NE
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Tuesday evening:
0.06 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.00 Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.03 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.41 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean. Here’s the latest NOAA satellite picture – the latest looping satellite image… and finally the latest looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands.
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Our local winds will blow from the east-northeast to easterly trade wind direction…prevailing into mid-week. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the Pacific Ocean. Weather models continue to suggest that the trades will be disrupted Thursday, veering back towards the southeast and south during the day. These southeast winds will carry volcanic haze (vog) from the Big Island vents, over the smaller islands. As we get into Friday and the weekend, our winds will pick up from the south and southwest, as a cold front approaches from the northwest…moving into the Hawaiian Islands.
Just a few cloudy periods along our windward sides…and generally clear to partly cloudy in the leeward areas. Satellite imagery shows patches of stable clouds being carried into the windward coasts and slopes here and there. Meanwhile, the leeward beaches will remain in good shape into Wednesday. Here’s the looping radar image, showing a few showers falling around parts of the Big Island and Maui. There are just a few showers here and there elsewhere…with little change expected into mid-week.
Generally fine weather conditions will prevail through Wednesday, as the overlying atmosphere remains quite dry and stable. As the winds become lighter Thursday into Friday, we’ll see afternoon clouds developing over the leeward slopes, leading to a few showers then. Towards the end of the work week we’ll begin to see a more dramatic change in our weather, with increasing showers…as a cold front moves into the state this weekend. This cold front is anticipated to be a strong one, with gusty Kona winds, potential flooding, and a good chance of thunderstorms too. Kauai will find showers arriving first, arriving later in the day Friday into the night, then pushing down into the rest of the island chain this weekend. I’ll be closely following this upcoming wet weather situation, fine tuning the particulars as we get closer to this event. I’ll be back early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
World-wide tropical cyclone activity:
Atlantic Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean
Caribbean Sea: There are no active tropical cyclones
Gulf of Mexico: There are no active tropical cyclone
Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico.
Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)
Eastern Pacific: There are no active tropical cyclone
Here’s a wide satellite image that covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.
Central Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)
Western Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
North and South Indian Oceans: Tropical Cyclone 05B (Lehar) remains active in the Bay of Bengal. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map, along with a satellite image.
Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
Interesting: Stealth Hunter. Soaring silently above the landscape, owls search out their prey utilizing acoustic stealth. University of Cambridge, England researchers led by Dr. Justin Jaworski are studying the owl’s wing structure and mechanics to better understand how it mitigates noise to apply that information to conventional aircraft design.
“Many owl species have developed specialized plumage to effectively eliminate the aerodynamic noise from their wings, which allows them to hunt and capture their prey using their ears alone,” said Justin Jaworski with the department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge. “No one knows exactly how owls achieve this acoustic stealth, and the reasons for this feat are largely speculative based on comparisons of owl feathers and physiology to other not-so-quiet birds such as pigeons.”
All wings, either natural or engineered, create turbulent eddies as they cut through the air. When these eddies hit the trailing edge of the wing, they are amplified and scattered as sound. Conventional aircraft, which have hard trailing edges, are particularly noisy in this regard.
Owls, however, possess no fewer than three distinct physical attributes that are thought to contribute to their silent flight capability: a comb of stiff feathers along the leading edge of the wing; a soft downy material on top of the wing; and a flexible fringe at the trailing edge of the wing. At present it is not known whether it is a single attribute or the combination of attributes that are the root cause of the noise reduction.
The researchers attempted to unravel this mystery by developing a theoretical basis for the owl’s ability to mitigate sound from the trailing edge of its wing, which is typically an airfoil’s dominant noise source. Earlier owl noise experiments suggest that their wing noise is much less dependent on air speed and that there is a large reduction of high frequency noise across a range where human ears are most sensitive.
Using mathematical models, the researchers demonstrated that elastic and porous properties of a trailing edge could be tuned so that aerodynamic noise would depend on the flight speed as if there were no edge at all. “This implied that the dominant noise source for conventional wings could be eliminated,” said Nigel Peake also of the University of Cambridge. “The noise signature from the wing could then be dictated by otherwise minor noise mechanisms such as the roughness of the wing surface.”
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